The invention concerns a handling system, comprising several handling devices and at least one workpiece carrier for holding workpieces. The handling devices for the system respectively have one actuator for assembling, joining and/or processing of a workpiece, e.g. with the aid of a gripper, and are provided with at least two movement axes, which are operatively connected to a drive and are used to position the respective actuator in varied positions on a coordinate system.
Automatic handling devices or industrial robots are frequently used for the handling and particularly the assembly of individual parts to form a product or structural component. An actuator is normally attached to the automatic handling device for this. The workpiece can be gripped, e.g. with a gripper, and if necessary can be reoriented, transported over a distance and subsequently positioned at a specific location. Tools can frequently be attached as actuators, for example for the processing through grinding.
The basic idea behind most of the known handling devices is that they should be as widely usable as possible. For that reason, said devices normally have a freely programmable control, allowing the grippers to move to any optional position within the movement range of the handling device. The handling devices are provided with numerical control (NC) axes for this. A so-called "teach-in" method is normally used to carry out assembly operations with such a handling device. With this method, the handling device is moved manually to the individual assembly points and these locations are subsequently stored.
To be sure, such known handling devices can actually be used for different applications. However, the relatively high conversion expenditure necessary for this has proven to be a disadvantage. The teach-in method in particular has turned out to be relatively time-consuming. In addition, one or several new workpiece holders must be designed, produced and integrated into the handling device for each new application.
Also, the known handling devices include several functions or options that are unnecessary for many concrete applications. This functional "overdimensioning" increases the design expenditure and thus the costs for such handling devices above the necessary level.